One last tilt at the wheel

“So this is kind of like a ‘God-playing-dice-with-the-universe’ thing, then?” asked Horode.

“No,” replied the sorceress. “This is an undead-blue-ogres-can-screw-up-life-the-universe-and-everything kind of thing.” She continued to wave her hands in an intricate series of arcane gestures while facing the door of her hall closet.

“I was thinking I might be able to stay,” ventured Horode, taking a long, purposeful drag upon his cigarette. Being dead, he lacked the breath to suck in the smoke, or air for that matter, but with conscious effort, he could force his undead lungs to suck the smoke down his windpipe in a fair approximation of smoking. When he had first awakened in the mighty metropolis of New York, still in his body in spite of the demonstrably fatal sword wound to his head, Horode had felt quite disoriented. Now though, having found clothes and cigarettes, he was starting to feel like he might be able to make a go of it. Though he doubted that his undead body would be able sweat enough to justify his wearing a “sweat shirt”, he nonetheless was quite taken with the animal design on his new garment and he felt that the colour was fetching. [pic 2]

“You can’t stay!” the sorceress declared. “I’m barely able to function here without disrupting everything; your presence would be unspeakably corrosive. This is New York! We don’t have ogres; we don’t have blue ogres; and we most definitely don’t have undead blue ogres!”

“Not even in the Greenwich Village?” Horode had never found the fabled village of Greenwich, but while walking the streets of the strange new city trying to find his bearings, every stranger he had met had assumed that he belonged in this magical village within the city and had said so in no uncertain terms. Horode had come to the conclusion that it was probably on the ethereal plane, like the fey villages of his own world, and had spent much time looking for a faerie circle to cross into the ethereal. That is how he had found the sorceress, who had undertaken to help him, though she insisted on sending him home.

“Even in the Village you’d rupture the fabric of reality. You’ve got to go back!” The sorceress turned to face the walk blue skinned corpse crouched against the wall in her hallway. As she watched, he took a loud, deep suck on his cigarette, then, pinching his nose closed with his free hand, blew the smoke out through the horrible hole in his head. “What on earth?” she stammered.

“Skull fracture,” said Horode with a smile and a shrug. “Pretty ‘cool’, huh?”

“Ugh,” said the sorceress, turning to face her cupboard door once more and turning the handle. “Of all the idioms you could have picked up in your time here; ‘cool’? Pfeh! Right, in you go.”

“Oh just get in there, will you.” Heaving all of her weight against the ogre, the sorceress shoved him through the doorway.

“Oh I see,” said the ogre as the sorceress stepped through the cupboard door behind him. “A hall of mirrors.”

“No, not a…” the sorceress gave up, frustrated. “Oh alright, a hall of mirrors.”

The place where the two stood was not in fact a hall, nor a room, at least not in the conventional sense of the words. Rather it was a blank space, enclosed on every side by what appeared to be mirrors. No two of the mirrors occupied the same plane, but each stood at an angle to all of its fellows. Horode and the sorceress were reflected in every mirror, but in each one the background was different, so that it appeared that they simultaneously stood in hundreds of places at once. One of these places was clearly recognisable as the sorceress’ hall cupboard, the hallway visible beyond the open door.[pic 4]

“Ah,” said the sorceress, peering between the images. “This is where we’re going!”

Suddenly the pair were standing on an endless, flat plane, covered with water about a foot deep. In every direction, to the horizon, there was no geographical feature to see. The only objects at all were two dead trees, poking their way out of the water, their leafless branches bleached white. While Horode and the sorceress watched, a shaft of light broke from the sky, bathing the trees in golden light. As it did so, small buds appeared upon the branches and tender green shoots emerged from the bark. [pic 1]

“Stop that,” came a weary voice at the base of one of the trees. The green, new life suddenly shrivelled and died away.

“Who’s that?” asked Horode, as he followed the sorceress towards the tree.

“That’s who we’ve come to see,” she answered. “Death.”

“Death?” Horode repeated, momentarily perplexed. When he drew close to the tree he saw a skeleton seated in the water at the base of the tree. In the skeleton’s lap, resting on the surface of the water, was a huge leather bound book. Opened to a specific page, Horode could see tiny figures walking about the book as though it were a piece of geography. It was fairly clear that the tiny people did not know that they were in a book.[pic 5] “What’s he doing?”

“I am reading,” answered Death, though his skeletal jaw did not move.

“That’s the Book of Ineffable Certainties,” explained the sorceress. “Death reads from the Book, measuring the days of all living things, until the end of Time.”

“Oh right.” Horode nodded, clearly not understanding any of what he saw. “Why are we here?”

“Because you belong to me,” said Death.

“Why?” asked Horode, then he raised his hand tentatively to the sword wound in his skull. “Oh yeah, this. So…um…what happens now?”

“I have a task for you.”

“What’s that?” asked Horode. Though Death’s face did not move, it seemed from his tone of voice that he was smiling when he answered.

“Apocalypse!” Amongst the figures in the book, a gout of green flame erupted from the page.

----

Doffhered staggered and collapsed to his knees as the ground shook and green flames, taller than the tallest trees, erupted from the spot where the High Priest had stood only a moment before. Something had gone unspeakably wrong with the ritual. In ever increasing horror he watched as from the eldritch flames an unending stream of skeletal warriors emerged.[pic 3] Armed with swords and maces, the skeletons set about the surviving priests, slaughtering without restraint. As his comrades fell, Doffhered was suddenly confronted by a blue ogre, over seven feet in height. It was dressed in an alien manner, though the blazon of a bull was plainly recognisable on the strange surcoat. The monster wielded a mighty, ironbound cudgel and from its mouth protruded a short, burning stick. Most shocking of all was that the side of the beast’s head had been cut away. It’s brain was clearly visible and smoke intermittently puffed from the hole.

“What are you?” asked Doffhered in complete shock.

“I’m a warrior of the Apocalypse, apparently,” answered Horode. “Cool, huh?” Then he brought his new club down in a single stroke and slew the cowering priest. Horode didn’t feel too bad about killing this man he’d never met; after all, he was dead and it had been real hoot so far.

----

Some time later, Death watched as yet more of his infinite army emerged from the emerald flames to spread across another dying world. He had read many such annihilations in his time and expected many more such before he reached the end of the Book. He turned the page. New York sprouted from the vellum and he observed the sorceress closing the door to her hall cupboard. His fingers skipped to the next page; he’d finish that story later. From the infinite skies above, another shaft of heavenly light fell to the tree behind him and another round of fresh green shoots sprouted.

“Oh, bugger off!” said Death, annoyed. His skeletal finger touched the tree and the new life perished instantly.

A humble question for the esteemed judges... http://jdyal.freezope.org/worship.gif This evening I closed on a house. Although I expected everything to go smoothly and quickly, in reality the last two days have been a Chinese fire drill for me, running around gathering last minute paperwork that I didn't know I needed to go through underwriting, and faxing it to my mortgage company. In addition to fairly busy days at work and in the evening here at home as well.

So, although I have a story in my head, I haven't written it, and I'll really struggle to get it done in the time frame listed -- I can certainly have it done within a few hours of that time, but I don't know honestly if I can get it done at the time stamp on the post, as I also know I have a fairly busy morning tomorrow.

So, if I don't quite make it in time, am I automatically disqualified, or can I beg for a little clemency here?